Meet our Leadership Team

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Joel Mulkey

Founder and CEO

Joel has over 10 years of executive leadership experience in designing and managing telecommunications systems. Prior to Bigleaf, Joel served as the CIO and Network Architect for Freewire Broadband, where he designed and managed the building and scaling of a custom RF network platform from concept to 500+ locations. He also created, staffed and led a 24/7 Network Operation Center, managed R&D, and oversaw relevant core network upgrades. Outside of Freewire, Joel also designed, prototyped and successfully patented a wireless data monitoring system for the firefighting industry. Joel has a track record of building teams, systems and personal skills to turn overwhelming challenges into successes.

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Jeff Burchett

Co-Founder & VP of Sales

Jeff has over 15 years of sales and leadership experience in the telecommunications industry. Prior to Bigleaf, Jeff served as the Director of Sales for Freewire Broadband, a fixed wireless provider in the northwest, where he built both an inside and outside direct sales team. Jeff also served as the Interim President of Freewire during a leadership transition in 2012. Prior to Freewire, Jeff had a successful sales career at Qwest Communications, serving in multiple sales and marketing capacities. Jeff is also an experienced entrepreneur, successfully launching a DVD kiosk startup in 2012. In his free time, Jeff enjoys family, sports, and cooking.

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John Hogan

VP of Partner Sales & Business Development

John is a graduate of the University of California at Davis, and earned his J.D. at Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College. Over the past 20 years, he has held a variety of leadership positions in the indirect channel. John started his career in telecommunications with a 10-year stay at U S West/Qwest Communications, where he spent the majority of his time running the Pacific Region of their Channel Partner program. From there, John spent some time heading Business Development for a local tech start-up and a facilities-based data services aggregator, before joining Comcast as one of the founding leaders of its new Channel Program in 2010. John served as the West Division Director for Comcast’s Program for 3 years, then held the same position for tw telecom/Level 3 for a couple years before joining Bigleaf. John’s unique combination of management and channel expertise will help guide Bigleaf through an aggressive growth plan in the channel in 2018 and beyond.

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Luke Heberling

Cofounder, VP of Software Engineering

As Bigleaf's co-founder Luke is the architect and author of our core circuit monitoring technology. He brings 20 years of experience in software engineering and management, including ISPs, a senior role at Google and 6 years based in Europe. He's passionate about sustainable management, planet-scale distributed software and the Unix philosophy. Outside of the office he is active in sports and travel, having completed marathons on four continents and visited over 100 countries.

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Aaron Kaffen

VP of Marketing

Aaron brings to Bigleaf more than 15 years of experience in both strategic and analytical marketing across a variety of software categories. Prior to Bigleaf, Aaron established and scaled the marketing team at Cloudability as the company grew from 6 to 115 employees. Aaron rode the wave of early web technologies in the late 90s and has had a passion for marketing ever since. He studied Marketing, Psychology and Human/Computer Interaction at Miami University where his thesis was among the first to explore the potential for human interaction online.

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Brandon Smith

Director of Operations

Brandon is a driven enthusiast of innovative technologies and has built successful startups and scalability plans in tech industries for over 20 years. Prior to joining Bigleaf, Brandon served as the National Director of Service Delivery and Support Technology with K12 Online Education, as the Associate Director of Television Services at Northern Arizona University, and as the founder of an award-winning Internet Service Provider. Brandon is a decorated USAF wartime veteran and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Digital Media Production.

Claire Schulte

Chief Financial Officer

Claire directs the financial, accounting, and administrative functions at Bigleaf. Prior to joining Bigleaf, Claire was the Senior Vice President of Finance at Integra Telecom, which later rebranded to Electric Lightwave, where she served as a finance leader for a $500 million telecommunications company. Her career began with 8 years as a Certified Public Accountant at Deloitte, followed by substantial international experience overseas in London and Hong Kong while working for Deloitte and Merix Corporation, respectively. Claire has significant merger and acquisition experience, including raising capital, leading due diligence activities, IPOs, and defining vision on post-close acquisition integration. She brings progressive accounting and finance leadership to both small start-up organizations and large corporate entities.